


Dialogue ———ABANDONED ATM

by andathousandyearsmore



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Break Up, Communication, Developing Relationship, Didn’t Know They Were Dating, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Every Single Relationship Tag Minus Engaged and Married, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Getting Back Together, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, Lack of Communication, M/M, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, POV Multiple, Past Relationship(s), Romance, The Avengers Are Good Bros, You heard me, and, everyone is worried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-07 09:50:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19206943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andathousandyearsmore/pseuds/andathousandyearsmore
Summary: Tony can feel Steve shift over next to him, and when he looks over, Steve's lying on his back, staring straight up at the ceiling in thought. Tony wants to fix the lines in Steve's face—lines only there when he's thinking too hard—with his fingers, but knows he can't. Not now. Maybe not ever, if things go the way everyone wants them to and the two of them suddenly gain much-needed common sense when it comes to each other. But no one else sees Steve in moments like these, so they don't see just how hard it is to let go. Tony doesn't want to, even it's selfish of himself and also destructive since he's destroying both his life and Steve's.But Steve's face is open in a vulnerability that's shown to only him, and unguarded. Steve's blond hair is mussed from both sleep and sex, and he doesn't show any inclination to fix it. He's not Captain America (paragon of American virtue) right now. He's just Steve Rogers, Tony's ex who he just slept with again, and that's all Tony wants. But he can't do this again, not right now, not when they're both hurting too much.He can hear Steve sigh right before he says, "Do you ever wonder why we keep falling like this?"





	Dialogue ———ABANDONED ATM

He doesn't know how they've gotten here to this point, forty-five minutes into an argument where he wishes he knows what they're fighting about. Seems like every fight they've had lately delves into every single issue they've ever had, and between the two of them, they can fill all of Manhattan and Brooklyn's cracks with them. Somewhere in his mind, he knows that they're avoiding the same things they always do, that they're yelling about the same things they do and that it'll never end any differently, but he can't stop. He can't bring himself to stop. Even when he knows that when it's over, regret will well up like a newly-picked scab as soon as it's over, and fade into longing and loneliness. 

It's a game they've played too many times, one where they've never won, never fully lost. He knows how it goes, and he can't walk away. It's bitter, and cruel, he knows, but then again, neither of them can. A never-ending vicious cycle of love, lust, apathy, and hate, but he doesn't think he would do it any other way. Not when any other way would mean losing everything and starting again when there doesn't seem to be a Square One in sight. 

They're just going through the motions, at a stage when everything they do is fire. He wonders if this is just the beginning of a new cycle, since their start on the carrier could not have gone more heated and bitter than if it weren't forced. Or maybe this is the middle of a cycle, one that starts in the high of love and lust, and begins to delve into a murky area when reality hits them like a cold, crashing wave. Honestly, they could be at the end of a cycle, with the crescendo of their good period coming crashing down into a miserable end that leads into a empty, lonely beginning with so much potential to rise into the high notes. He doesn't know anymore which is it, what is it. 

It isn't as if he is oblivious to what he's doing, what he's in. They're always on and off, always filled with bursts of passion, and  always filled with moments of withdrawal. The thing is, withdrawal is a lack of a drug, and he doesn't know if he wants to call this thing he has a drug. It's true that he can't ever get enough the times he wants comfort, wants his touch, and it's true that he'll always say that this is the last time, the last hookup, the last fight, the last date, the last anything. But a drug?

He's never paid too much attention to those who tell him that he might be falling deeper and deeper into a bad relationship where he can't get out without hurting himself. He doesn't listen when they tell him that it's toxic to him. Because if that's true, then he has to be toxic himself, since he knows his relationship goes the same way both ways. And that... that's a possibility he doesn't want to think about. He's always been a master of denial, after all. This wouldn't even be the biggest lie he told himself. That one might be whenever he tells himself that he either doesn't or does want to be in this relationship. Either way, when he doesn't know, they're both lies. 

Lies that he knows both of them tell each other. Sometimes, when he catches him at the wrong phrase, the wrong jab, he can see that both of them are lying in that moment about the fact that they hate each other. Other times, when they're in the middle of sex that might be a touch on the border of hatesex, they're both lying about loving each other. But if they don't do either, then what's happening? He doesn't know. 

The only thing that's clear is the sex, at this point. Wonderful 'I love you' sex, or passionate 'god I've missed you and I'll admit it' sex, or mindblowing 'god, it's been forever' sex that neither of them will admit they want, or rough 'I hate you' sex. They're both good at it, and it's never been a problem between them. It's probably in those moments when they'll fully admit that they move together and work together like two cogs in one well-oiled machine or like red and blue in one striking purple. In those moments, when reality's been dulled out and the two of them finally make sense like no other time, he knows that he'll never find someone else that knows him as well as he does.

— ━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━ —

Pepper thinks she's going to murder a certain blond super-soldier in his tracks, and then possibly a certain genius billionaire philanthropist. She likes said blond well enough without the context of Tony, but in the context of Tony, he's probably up there in the list of worst exes. Mainly because he never _stays_ long enough on that list of worst _exes_. Which she also hates, because she knows what she can do to bad exes; she's been doing it to all of Tony's exes who have dared to slander him in the news. Pepper has spent probably all of her time that she's known Tony thinking on how to help him out there, help him deal with the after, and this time, this shouldn't be any different. Except a small soon as she has a plan, said blond is no longer an ex. 

Everyone knows that she's protective over Tony. It's probably the reason why she hasn't dated him, despite him and the world trying. It's very clear to her that the two of them wouldn't be any good romantically, because he does big gestures and grand celebrations while sometimes forgetting the small things, and she does small gestures and snapshot moments while sometimes forgetting that not everyone likes the things she does, and the big things. She also worries. She fears that one day, if they ever date. she'll probably worry enough that she'd make him choose between her and superheroing and then break his heart. So she stays away there. 

Still, everyone knows she'd pick Tony and protect him above anyone else. Which is why she knows exactly why Natasha walks towards her with a buisness-like mask over her face, quelling her enough that she stops in her tracks and waits for Natasha to talk. 

"Don't."

Pepper decides to play coy, even though Natasha's superpower might as well be spying, espionage, close combat, lie-detecting and whatever else that falls in that domain because of how well she's good at it. "Don't what?" 

"How did you did find out, this time?" 

"JARVIS told me that last night might have given Tony an opportunity to break his sobriety and considering how much Tony value his sobriety, how much effort he's put into staying away and fighting any sort of urge to drink it away, and how much he meant it when he said he'd be the first Stark to not die an alcoholic... it seemed important enough that I was incredibly glad that transportation's no longer a problem," she answers honestly, rubbing her right temple while closing her eyes to take a deep sigh. "And JARVIS doesn't ever... it's not that I don't trust him, because I do, I really do, but sometimes whenever it comes to those two, he just doesn't make the same decisions he would otherwise. I don't want him to regret a split-second choice he's made in the wake of their mess."

"They say it's the last time, one last time, and then it's not," Natasha sympathizes, sounding a little softer, thank god. "And you're worried that one last time might translate over to this."

Pepper nods, feeling like she should be horrible for thinking that. But that's how people work often, and it's something she's seen all too often in this world. "What happened though?"

Natasha gives her a wane smile. "Yesterday's press conference, from a PR standpoint, went like a dream. Everyone loved it, before you start worrying. But when a reporter asked Tony if he was quote unquote seeing someone, Tony said he wasn't. Again. Steve didn't even look at him until last night."

Pepper's murderous resolve drops, replaced with a growing dread. "Oh god."

"I'm telling you this because it wasn't Steve who broke it off this time, nor was it Steve who started last night's argument," Natasha informs, a dark look in her eyes. There's something else, something more that Pepper doesn't know. "So if you're going to yell at him, don't. You would also have to catch a flight to wherever Steve went at four in the morning." 

She wonders if Natasha knows where Steve went, or if Natasha has just learned that Steve's gone and is about to find out. Either way it brings up a question why and where Steve has left, but one she's not going to focus on. She has Tony to console.

— ━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━ —

Steve knows that he's not thinking straight right now, not when he's halfway across the world doing a favor to a certain deceased ex-director of SHIELD not because he wants to, but because it'll get him out. Out of his current mood, out of the Tower, and out of sight, even if it's just for a little while. He knows it's not going to get him out of his life, or anything else, but he doesn't care. He just needs a break. 

If he's being honest, it isn't as if fighting HYDRA is a hassle. Every single time he does, it's a step towards ending something he should have ended seven centuries ago. It's probably penance, for failing all those decades ago and taking the easy way out, but it's one he's going to pay this time around. After all, last time he wasn't around, it ended up being Bucky and the countless lives that HYDRA took, the countless people and families ruined by HYDRA's influence, the countless victims from HYDRA's executed plots. 

Despite what people say about him, and by people he means his team and Bucky, he does run from fights. He runs from the things to close to him, because he doesn't think he wants to deal with facing it head on like a normal person would. Running away has always been the easier option than trying to deal with whatever was the problem. Or denial. 

And, giving himself a little credit here, he's tried to fix problems through with Tony, but every single time he thinks this might be the one, it really isn't. Every time he tries, they come crashing down and the best case scenario ends in sex they wish they didn't. He wonders what the worst case could ever possibly be. It's not permanent hate, because he thinks he'd take that over being suckered into the cycle again one more time. 

Steve just needs a break. A long, long break. Maybe longer than the break he took by moving to D.C. and maybe one that's different, since D.C. turned out to be a hell of a _vacation_. Ha. Ha. Ha.

D.C. opened up a clusterfuck that he doesn't know was better to be opened or closed (that's a lie, he's glad he found out). And now, staring at the files in his hands at this HYDRA base, ones he wishes that never existed, Steve can't help but viscerally understand why people used to salt the earth. 

Apparently, this was the place where they initially kept Bucky. Apparently, this was where they kept some of their most important missions, time-stamped and all. Even though almost all the files are gone, there are still little markings that indicate a few details of missions, because apparently, that's how HYDRA organizes. 

And apparently, the Winter Soldier had a very important mission on December 16, 1991. 

Immediately, he remembers Zola telling him about Howard in that little slideshow. 

Fuck. Jesus. Shit. _Fuck_. 

— ━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━ —

This is how it all starts, in Natasha’s opinion. Fuck everyone else’s ideas, she knows that she’s right.

Everyone likes to kid themselves that this relationship between Steve and Tony didn’t start on the helicarrier (and maybe someone can make a case saying that their relationship started with Steve getting the serum or Steve crashing the Valkyrie) but in all honesty, it _did_. Their relationship started the moment that Tony chose to ask her if she missed him, and it hasn’t ended since. They can all say that the sceptre had influenced that first fateful disaster, and that every single word that both of them chose to say were planted thoughts, but that’s not true. The sceptre did nothing but enhance negative and spiteful thoughts. Which meant they had to have existed in the first place, no matter how misinformed or warped. 

They began with a series of misunderstandings and misinformation, and if she were any more a kinder woman, she would say they have a chance to turn everything around. She is not. She is realistic and practical, so she thinks she will be very surprised if they don’t end off any better than where they started. Love is for children, after all, and not for those in their line of business. 

And even if they hadn’t started off in disaster, she knows they would have found another way to begin. Their first date was _after_ a series of post-mission hookups, hate-sex hookups, and amidst sessions of pining, loneliness and desires of something more. Speaking of hookups, she doesn’t even know what levels of adrenaline and bad-idea-hormones both of them were running on for how obvious (well, at least to her) they were. They’re running on the physical, and completely neglecting everything else. Hence the problems. 

This is how they never end, in her predictions. And if anyone says that they _will_ end, she’ll laugh at them in her mind because she knows she’s right. 

They'll get together in a spectacularly bad idea, because they’ve missed each other, or they’re tired of hating each other, or they want to feel something that they haven’t felt in a while. They’ll pretend that everything is getting better for them for the next few days, and then get together again ‘for real’ this time. And then the next few weeks are bliss. Sickeningly sweet and domestic. There will always be declarations of apology and ‘I don’t know why we didn’t do this sooner’ from at least one of them. And then, something will happen, a small seemingly innocuous remark from an outsider or even sometimes one of them. It’s never purposeful. Always an accident. Cue the first argument. Cue the second argument. Cue the third argument, where every single fight they’ve ever had is hashed out again. Cue the split, and fiery anger on both of their parts. Cue the next day, where they feel miserable, and then cover it up by feeling nothing at all. Cue suffering, and then bad ideas that start the cycle all over again. 

No, Steve and Tony are definitely an endgame, but she hopes that they don’t fizzle out too soon. Hope is useless for dead men and women, but she does it anyway for these two idiots, that they may live and have decades of time together. They’re no good without each other, and she knows if one of them dies, there’s no guarantee the other won’t.  

This is how they live, in her observations. This is how they fight: together. The day they don’t do it together, the day that they might decide to do anything not together is the day everyone loses. 

The sad reality is, even when they hate each other, they do it together. And _that’s_ the tragic story of Steve Rogers and Tony Stark. 

— ━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━ —

Steve gets back to the Tower at three in the morning, covered in dirt, sweat, and probably blood. Honestly, he couldn’t care less with how tired and mentally exhausted he is. His mind is spinning with information and a dilemma, and he has to brace himself against the elevator door, exhausted. 

“Hey JARVIS?” Steve asks the AI, thinking, _fuck_ _it._ He can’t lose Tony anymore than right now anyway. Part of him says that he shouldn’t care about losing Tony, not after what Tony’s done, but another part of him knows he’s done just as bad, if not worse things to Tony. Despite it all, he loves Tony, and thinks that he’s fought out all his anger. “Is there is anyone else awake right now?” 

“Sir is in his workshop,” JARVIS responds, almost reluctantly. Steve doesn’t say he can blame the AI, who likes him when he’s dating Tony and tolerates him when he isn’t. “He’s forbidden any visitors.” 

“Can you take me to him? Please,” Steve says, his voice cracking, “I need to tell him something.” 

“I cannot.” 

“JARVIS, please,” Steve says. He knows what telling Tony would mean for him, and any chance that they could salvage their relationship. And he wants to give up now, forget that he learned anything, deny any knowledge, but Tony deserves better. Tony always deserves better than him and his issues. Maybe the best thing he can do is just make Tony walk away forever from him so they don’t fall back in again. But maybe the best thing is to try again, even if he knows he won’t have a chance after this again. It’s his bed to sleep in now, his lonely and cold bed. “I know he doesn’t want to talk to me, but just tell him it doesn’t have to do anything about before. Tell him I don’t anything from him but the next two minutes. Please.” 

He waits in the elevator, staring up at the ceiling. Steve knows he’s an awful person, doomed to hell because all he can think about is fucking up any shot at a relationship with Tony again when _Tony’s parents were fucking assassinated by his best friend, who was brainwashed for seventy years thanks to Steve’s mistakes._  

The seconds tick by like torturous hours, and he wonders if JARVIS has even bothered to convey a message to Tony. Maybe the AI didn’t, fully protective of Tony and somehow supernaturally aware of what Steve’s about to tell him. Or maybe just the fact that it isn’t good news in the very slightest. 

The elevator starts to move on JARVIS’s accord before he starts to ask JARVIS to bring him up to at least his floor. As he watches the numbers tick higher than his floor, he looks up at the camera in the elevator and doesn’t know whether to thank JARVIS or spite him just a little. But he’s not chickening out. He can’t. 

For once, he can’t be a selfish bastard, not with information in his hands like this. 

— ━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━ —

Tony watches as JARVIS pulls up the live feed from the camera in the elevator on his request. He hates himself for telling to J to alert him as soon as Steve had gotten back, but he doesn’t care. Steve looks absolutely wrecked, in all horrible senses of that word. He’s still in his stealth suit, which looks to be burned and completely shredded in areas and completely dirty everywhere. There’s a bloom of red near Steve’s leg that Steve doesn’t seem to be aware of. The cowl and/or any headgear that Steve may have worn with this suit isn’t with him right now, and his blond hair is sticking up everywhere, ash and dirt messed in it. As for Steve himself, the expression on his face is weary, completely frozen and shut down. He looks devastated and almost incapable of standing up. 

“Hey JARVIS? Is there anyone awake right now?” Steve asks, and by anyone, Tony knows that Steve really means him. 

“Sir is in his workshop. He has forbidden any visitors.” This time, by any visitors, both of them know that Tony means Steve. 

Steve’s voice is weak and pleading when he asks, “Can you take me to him? Please. I _need_ to tell him something.”

As predicted, thankfully, JARVIS responds, “I cannot.” The crushing look on Steve’s face is almost enough to make Tony change his mind and reconsider. 

“JARVIS please,” Steve begs, this close to giving up but powering on anyway. Tony’s never seen Steve close to giving up, ever, and it scares him to see Steve like this, vulnerable in all the wrong ways. Like one wrong word could make him cry and shut down forever. He doesn’t want that kind of power, not like a sick bastard. Steve continues to plead JARVIS, until Tony can’t take it anymore. 

“Let him up, J, okay?” Tony quietly says, unable to look away from Steve’s body. The feed disappears by itself, and Tony takes that as a signal that Steve’s here. 

He hears the doors slide open, and then the sound of footsteps. 

Tony can’t even manage to muster up anything but a blank look. He somehow manages to keep a level tone when he says, “Two minutes, Rogers.” 

Steve flinches at the use of his last name, but Tony needs to put distance between them right now. He can’t let Steve get too close to hold this kind of power over him, this kind of power to be able to utterly destroy him and then both. Given his track record, he needs to try harder to stop even entertaining any hopes at reconciling. This time, he wants to make it stick for Steve’s sake. 

“I—” Steve starts to say, before he stops. Pauses. Swallows hard. Tries again. “Did you know that HYDRA had a file on your father?” 

“Almost every organization did,” Tony flippantly responds, watching every single change in Steve’s face. 

“They had the kind of file that grew too big,” Steve says, looking up as if he wants to ceiling to fall on him and take him. Tony relates to that, at least. “The kind of file they wanted taken out.” 

Tony’s heart stops for a second. Steve can’t be saying—no. He can’t, right? “Good thing my dad went and did the job for them,” he bitterly says. 

“They had a file on your mother too. And Jarvis,” Steve says. “It wasn’t a coincidence what happened to all three of them.” 

“Great,” Tony says, trying to keep his breathing steady until Steve leaves, “Great. So HYDRA killed—turns out it wasn’t dear old drunken dad. It was—okay. They were murdered. Great. Fantastic. Thanks for telling me. I’m just going to-”

Steve interrupts him with a shake of his head. “Tony,” he says, voice wavering too much. “Hypothetically, if the Winter Soldier had a file that was marked December 16, 1991, what would you think?” 

 _Fuck_. Fuck. “Get out,” Tony says with as much conviction as he can without crying at what Steve’s saying. “ _Get_ _out_!”

Steve turns around and leaves without protest. All within two fucking minutes.

— ━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━ —

Tony doesn’t leave his workshop for the next four days. Steve stays on his side of the floor or the gym for those same four days, plus an additional two. This too, is normal behavior. 

At least, until before Tony emerges. When Tony decides to leave the workshop and join the team for breakfast on the fifth day, there are circles underneath his eyes large enough that Sam could do trigonometry in. There isn’t anger in him, but there is grief all over his face. Grief that seemingly isn’t for Steve, surprisingly enough. It’s for something deeper than that, something has to be connected with the resentment and trauma eked onto his hard-set frown and the way he stares at everything, including his coffee. 

Tony’s only had one cup, which makes Sam think that the genius has slept, even if said sleep was riddled with nightmares and unstable REM cycles. He doesn’t seem inclined to go after more coffee, either, surprisingly. _Surprisingly_. He actually is awake, and somewhat alert, with just a small, espresso-less cup of caffeine. 

“What do you do when your ex’s ex killed your parents?” Tony blurts out, like he’s been stewing on that question forever. 

“Um,” Clint says, almost panickedly. “Is this a hypothetical kind of situation?” 

Tony’s face almost shutters itself. “Sure,” he lies easily. “Hypothetically speaking.” 

“I would probably figure out why,” Sam says calmly, not really wanting to think at all about what Tony’s saying. He values his sanity. “And I would probably go straight to my therapist.” 

“You don’t have a therapist,” Natasha blinks once, her expression unchanged from the beginning. 

“Sure I do,” Sam says, because _fucked-up war vet who saw his partner blown up_ is probably one of his primary descriptors. Or secondary, these days, since he seems to be playing _Avenger_  and _VA counselor_  these days. “I just haven’t seen them in a while.” 

“I’d go apeshit,” Clint says honestly, and slowly, and Sam shoots him a glare, “But my kind of apeshit is the kind where I disappear off the grid for a few months on a farm that may or may not exist anymore.” 

“Good to know,” Tony says, trying to fake a quiet smile. 

“Tony.” Natasha's voice is firm enough to stop Tony from hiding into himself. “Hypothetically, I would make whoever killed my parents _pay_.” 

The blanket of solemnity falls over all of them. Tony slumps into himself more, his face losing even more colour than possible. 

“Who happens to be Steve’s ex?” Clint asks quietly. 

Natasha’s eyes flash too quickly for any of the others to notice it. But Sam knows what that flash means: Natasha has figured something out. 

“The Winter Soldier,” Natasha whispers. “Oh god.” 

— ━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━ — 

After he tells Tony, the next week is a complete blur. Natasha finds him after another blurred afternoon. She does not look happy. 

Last time she looked like that, Natasha promptly shot and killed the recipient of that face. So Steve immediately freezes from punching the bag and gives her his attention. He hopes he’s not going to get shot at by her; he doesn’t even have his shield this time. 

“Did you know for sure?” she asks coldly. “Because both of us saw that video, but it doesn’t—” 

Steve doesn’t want to interrupt her, especially when he can count at least five knives on her, but he has no sense of self-preservation. He doesn’t care. “Not the video. I have proof. Well, I blew up the proof. But if Tony ever wants to look at what he pulled from the internet about us from the data dump, he’ll find something.” 

Natasha frowns imperceptibly. “He didn’t pull information on the Winter Soldier.” 

“He didn’t have to. The Winter Soldier’s mission on the 16th of December, 1991 was pulled because it mentioned the name Stark and Tony pulled all Stark files. And any files on James Buchanan Barnes were pulled because of their relationship to me. Most files on the Winter Soldier love to flaunt that Bucky was turned into the Winter Soldier because HYDRA loved to make it known that Cap’s best friend became an alleged traitor. So they got flagged and pulled. The remaining files that only mention the Winter Soldier and the _Asset_ were from the Red Room. All Red Room files were pulled because of you. Everything got pulled,” Steve shakes his head, shrugging. 

“Does Tony know?” Natasha asks after she processes that for the next minute. 

Steve shakes his head again. “About any of that? I don’t know. If he’s looked, he has to know that it exists. I don’t think he knows he pulled it, though. That it only exists to us.” 

She stares at him, cold eyes assessing him and reading him vulnerably open. “Are you going to tell him?” Something in the way she’s postured seems off, like she’s conning him or not telling the full story to something. 

In the second it takes him to think about his response, another thought springs to mind. Steve wants to laugh and cry at the same time, for being stupid enough to forget about the third (and fourth, who’s watching with the eyes of the third) person of this conversation. 

“I don’t have to,” Steve says, keeping his face as unmoving as possible. She doesn’t need to know from his face that he’s figure it out. Then it’s no use. “Not anymore.” 

Natasha’s poker face is infinitely better than his, but when he knows what he wants to see, then even her face is infinitely readable. She merely raises an eyebrow. 

“I was wondering how to ask Tony for two more minutes,” Steve slowly says, and he knows that this is going to make sense to JARVIS and Tony, who are watching this conversation play out in live time. He weakly smiles and swallows hard. “Now I don’t have to.” 

“Two more?” Natasha asks. 

“How long do you think it took me to tell him about the Winter Soldier in the first place?” Steve responds, his weak smile fading and he hears his voice come out sad and bitter. 

Natasha’s face shifts, though it’s still blank. Her voice, on the other hand, is on the edge of sympathetic when she says, “I doubt it felt like two minutes.”

— ━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━ —

Tony hates that he has to schmooze everyone at this party without Steve beside him, cracking quiet jokes and making the entire thing tolerable. He’s relied on Steve to make everything better for a while, and he doesn’t want to be alone again now that he knows what it’s like to be with someone. He’s miserable like this. 

Worst of all, Steve is here too, visibly uncomfortable in his own skin and the military uniform he’s wearing, done up with countless pins and medals. Steve is one more fondled moob or one more exclamation of adoration from losing the charming smile on his face. The same charming smile that has everyone convinced to high heaven that Steve is Mr. Wholesome Apple Pie, capable of doing no wrong and not capable of having even a single dirty secret. The same charming smile that’s plastered on every textbook making Steve out to be a dashing, picture-perfect hero with a soft charm. 

Everyone had initially assumed that Steve was going to be a fish out of water when it came to the press, but he had blown past that instantly. Steve was all smiles and easy answers to any reporter who asked him any questions. He was also a master at diversion, at manipulating his answers to satisfy everyone without giving anything away. But really, who was going to accuse Captain America of not actually answering a question? It was ingenious, and all of them fell into a zone of believing that Steve liked doing press. It was easy to think, after, that Steve was a natural who was comfortable with the cameras.

And then Tony had started to date (date?) Steve. Every assumption was thrown out the window after that, _again_. Tony didn’t know when it started to catalog every single one of Steve’s little quirks and mannerisms (big lie, he had been doing it since the helicarrier during Loki but only noticed he was doing it the first time Steve kissed him on the forehead in the lab) but he noticed one thing a lot. Steve tended to subtly straighten his posture and wear a smile fit for the press whenever he was nervous. Which was funny because he  only got nervous for the press. And also not funny because Steve tended to fall into a Captain-y personality if left like that for too long. 

But no one else can tell. No one else sees the thin lines of tension from Steve as he laughs and charms his way across everything. No one else can see how Steve’s eyes are crinkling at the corners but screaming for help while searching for an escape route. No one else sees his smile dip down fractionally every time he’s grabbed and groped by strangers and officials alike, because it raises itself back just a little higher each and every time. 

No one but Tony, and he’s cursed to not be able to do a single damned thing about it all. He can’t walk over to Steve right now and call him away for Avengers business, or pretend like he’s bored and in desperate need for entertainment. Tony can’t just drag Steve away on pretense of a Tower emergency or a thing with SHIELD or SI or even some diplomatic thing with Asgard. That’s just not how this goes. Not now, when they’re fractured and everything’s too raw. 

So Tony continues to play his sing and dance for everyone, show off the fact that he’s a _Stark_ , and Stark men are made of iron and steel. He tries to keep his eyes away from Steve and Steve’s increasingly concerning fade into his Captain-y persona. Because he shouldn’t care, right? He can’t afford to care right now, he doesn’t care, right? 

Wrong. Another half and hour flies by, maybe a little more, and Tony’s given up on pretending like it doesn’t make him feel just a twinge of concern for Steve. Even if he knows that he can’t directly do anything about it, maybe he can orchestrate something to let Steve get out. Maybe enlist Natasha and Clint? They’re probably for a ticket out of this too. He would have gotten Bruce, except Bruce has ducked out a long while ago. Lucky. 

Before Tony can do anything about it though, and before he can start searching for Natasha or one of her several Mary Poppins’s bag of identities, his eyes snag on Steve once more. He’s with someone that Tony’s either sure is the Prince of the vibranium country (Wakanada? Wakanda?) or the guy who played Jackie Robinson in that movie (42? Was it 42? Or is that the number from Hitchhiker’s Galaxy?). Tony wouldn’t have really cared, except for the look of genuine interest in Steve’s eye. 

All the tension that Tony was talking about before? Gone, like it hadn’t even existed, and it‘s all thanks to this guy. Not Tony but this guy, Prince Robinson (so sue him if he splits the difference). This guy doesn’t know Steve like Tony did. He probably doesn’t even know that Steve wasn’t really comfortable; it isn’t fair that he can just get Steve to unwind like that. That is Tony’s job. 

Before he can think about it rationally, and without the strange feeling coiling in the bottom of his stomach, Tony walks over to Steve with a million false excuses and stories in his mind. He has a winning smile on his face and a game face on; there’s no way he’s going to lose this. 

“Hey,” he says to Steve and then nods to the guy (who he has placed as the Prince of Wakanda and not Jackie Robinson’s screen double). “We have a situation back at the Tower.” 

Steve blinks once, and then narrows his eyes at Tony, like he’s trying to figure out if Tony’s lying or not. “Again?” Steve asks amusedly, not looking too bothered and trying to brush it off as a joke. “What about?” 

“Something about interns, hackers, and sentient machines,” Tony says, reusing a story from around six months ago. The only catch was that this story was real, so he sincerely hopes that the Prince didn’t pay attention to magazine rags and remember them. 

Steve pulls a face and then apologetically looks to the Prince. “Well, I’m sorry that I have to leave, but I’d love to have this conversation at a later time, if you’d like.” 

“Of course, Captain,” the Prince says in a smooth, cultured voice unlike any accent that Tony has heard before. “It would be my pleasure.” 

Steve nods in acknowledgement and dutifully follows Tony out into the hallway out of prying eyes and ears. He shrugs on a coat and then follows Tony out into the elevator that unbeknownst to Steve, has been hijacked by JARVIS for maximum privacy. 

“Okay,” Steve says, his mask of politeness and sunny smiles vanishing. “What’s really happening? You never reuse a story, especially not a real one.” 

“You looked uncomfortable,” Tony lackey says, now that he’s face to face with the full force of one uninterested Steve Rogers, which includes those Disappointed Eyebrows Of Shame and the Puppy Blue Eyes Of Honesty. 

Steve doesn’t budge. “No,” he says. “I had been uncomfortable, but you didn’t help then. But I wasn’t with Prince T’challa and then suddenly you came over. So. What’s really happening?” 

Damnit. Why does Steve has his number so well? 

“Maybe I was feeling just a little like—”

“Like what?”

Tony leans against the elevator wall siding and blows out a sigh. “Like maybe I was jealous. Like maybe I wanted what we always did lately.” 

Steve stares at him, but the piercing stare softens a little. He fiddles slightly with the cufflinks on his left wrist and then lets go like he’s been burned when Tony catches him. Cufflinks that Tony gave him. 

“You’re not drunk,” Steve states as a fact, blinking again. “Or high. Or tired. Or nutrient-deprived. Or even sleep-deprived.”

“No,” Tony says, “I am not.”

— ━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━ —


End file.
